


the strings that tie (you to me)

by pennyofthewild



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind fusion thing, F/M, M/M, Motorcycles, Mountaineering, Run-On Sentences, Travel, an ode to grammar, gratituous use of second person POV, warnings for language and sensuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-02
Updated: 2014-10-02
Packaged: 2018-02-19 14:56:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2392460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pennyofthewild/pseuds/pennyofthewild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(or, the memories we map)</p>
<p>[“Are you,” Haruka says slowly, “the sort of guy who likes shoujo animanga?”<br/>“Way to ruin the moment, Haru-chan,” Rin’s chuckle travels from the top of Haruka’s head down to his feet, “but yes, you’re right. I am a closet romantic.”<br/>“There’s nothing about you that’s in the closet, Rinrin,” Haruka mutters, and attempts to extricate himself from Rin’s grip.]</p>
<p>In an alternate universe: Haruka meets Rin. (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	the strings that tie (you to me)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thimble](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thimble/gifts).



> ~~*nervous stutter* bent i am so sorry (happy belated birthday) (i know this is, oh, eight months late please forgive me)~~  
>     
> I know I've written a RinHaru-climb-Fujisan fic before! -Initially, the fic was meant to cover a trip to the floating torii gate at Itsukushima, but. Over the past - eight months - this silly story has undergone countless revisions? The inital plans for it were nearly 20k long and I hated every word. After much pruning, hair pulling, and buckets of tears, I present to you the half-as-long, no less crappy, equally trash _Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind_ AU. Please forgive my typos, dumb prose, and general inability to English.
> 
> tl;dr:  
> the poem Rin quotes is [First Love](http://www.poemhunter.com/best-poems/shimazaki-toson/first-love-3/) by Shimazaki Toson  
> the title is inspired by a song off Eternal Sunshine's OST  
> this is crappy as hell; i apologize  
>  _Update: minor edits made on 11/5/2014_
> 
> [[listen]](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ccFSXgdv5U)  
> 

 

 

**the strings that tie (you to me)**  
_(or, the memories we map)_

 

It’s a kind of victory, you think. To cross a finish line in first place, awash with the roar of the crowd. To stand on a podium, with your heart pounding in your ears. To send a text message and receive an immediate reply, when before there were hours in between answers. To throw an arm around reluctant shoulders, and feel them shift into yours. To stand at the edge of the world, and shout into the sunset:

I saw. I desired. I conquered.

To coax a smile from a face that used to be set in stone.

To be approached voluntarily.

To lie on your back on golden sand, skin grainy and chest heaving. To look at the boy sprawled by your side and say, “well, what do you know? You beat me,” and be given a look of absolute conviction out of eyes that were once empty.

He shifts, almost imperceptibly. “I could beat you again.” His fingers curl into the sand.

“Nah,” you say, “that was a one-time thing. A fluke.” The words roll off your tongue like honey. It has always been too easy to say too much to him.

He frowns: a slight narrowing of eyes, a puckering of lips.

“Then let’s go again. I’ll prove you wrong.”

It is a little boy’s proclamation of defiance – you are alike in more ways than one – more mouthing off than anything _real_ , because you both know he is not fit to stand, much less swim another hundred meters. Years of stubbornly avoiding competitive swimming have taken their toll.

Such a waste of raw potential.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” you say, “I bet you don’t have the energy to stand. I’ll give you five thousand yen if you make it to the road.”

He eyes you suspiciously. “And if I can’t?”

You reach out, flick his nose. “I’ll carry you to the car.”

His eyes widen – and then he looks away. “ _You’re_ the one who’s ridiculous,” he says.

“I can, you know,” you say, easily, self-assured in your abilities and the inevitability of his concession.

He throws an arm over his face, brown with summer sunshine. “I never said you couldn’t,” and it comes out like a mumble, an admission of defeat – and, there it is, you think: the victory, blazing, like

 

 

the late afternoon sunlight, bright across the sky

and

the low _whoosh_ of air that plays across your skin

and

the look on his face when he turns to look at you, flushed pink with impossibly wide, wide eyes, shiny with sweat and sea salt:

 

Ah, you think. I’ve won:

And

Lying on your back spread-eagled on the sand awash with the glow (of your success), your heart beats in your throat, a slow, pulsing throb-throb-throb-throb, as though it has been forced to slow down, throb-throb-throb-throb, blood like sticky honey in your veins.

You lick your lips, draw in a breath. Open your mouth, intent with purpose. Despite the sky over your head and the sand under your back and the boy within inches of you – or perhaps because of it – your heart speeds up _throb-throb-throb-throb_ , as if reminding you that what you will do next will this moment a game-changing one, as if you have been waiting your whole life to say what you say next:

“Haru,” you breathe.

The wind sings in your ears. The rush-roar of the waves drowns out your words.

Later, if you could remember to do so, you’d remind yourself that no victory is absolute.

 

***

 

Late one afternoon a week after he is released from the hospital, Nanase Haruka gets on a bus. He has a few thousand yen worth of crumpled paper bills in his pocket, a backpack with a change of clothes, his sketchbook, and a Murakami novel, and a niggling desire to climb a mountain.

“You hate mountains,” Makoto protested, on the grounds that Haruka had never said he liked mountains, and therefore, on principle, must dislike them. According to this principle, Haruka hates a lot of things: his parents, competitions, tea without milk. “What if you fall?”

“I’m going to climb Fujisan,” Haruka told him with (characteristic) stubbornness. “You don’t have to come.”

He left the ‘I know you’re scared,’ unsaid, because he is not entirely without tact. Makoto, of course, knew what he was thinking, anyway.

“I’m not scared,” he said, weakly, “I just value my neck over adrenaline rushes.”

“It’s the same thing,” Haruka told him. He might have added that thousands of people have climbed Fujisan since forever, with almost no-one getting injured at all, but it would have required too many words.

Makoto, giving him up for a lost cause, had said, “fine, do what you want. I can’t change your mind.”

(He’s never been able to. Understanding something is not tantamount to the ability to control it.)

“But Haru-chan,” Makoto continued, his voice shaky with more than the bad reception, “please, please promise me you’ll be safe. Take your cellphone with you and keep it charged. Pick it up when someone calls you.”

“I’m not going to throw myself off the peak, Makoto,” Haruka had replied, and that had been that.

It is off-season, almost mid-September, cold and promising to get colder. The bus is nearly empty. Most people leave such excursions for more pleasant times of the year – but Haruka simply cannot wait. He’s felt strange since he got out of the hospital – an accident, Rei told him; he’d been hit by a car – as if he is missing something.

Haruka does not remember the accident. Nor does he remember anything leading up to it. What was he doing? Who was he with?  Where was he going? There is a gap in his memory, a large chunk of _thoughts-feelings-information_ that has been erased.

“Come home,” Makoto had pleaded over the telephone. “Rei is coming down, isn’t he? Come with him. I miss you. Nagisa misses you – your grandmother misses you – and you know how she never says so out loud. You’ll feel better here, Haru-chan.”

Tidying up his room the day before, Haruka found a copy of _The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle_ , with a dedication in the front cover.

_To Haru, with love._

It was unsigned, and the kanji was unfamiliar. He could not remember receiving the book. There was a folded up piece of paper between the pages, an afterthought of a bookmark, with a list scrawled onto it. The title read:

25 Things to Do Before – and a blank.

Most of the list’s items had been crossed off: ride a motorcycle, white-water rafting, shark-diving. The uncrossed item, #24, stated: climb Mount Fuji, and the space in front of #25 was empty. The strangest thing about the whole affair was that it was written in his own handwriting.

“Have I ever ridden a motorcycle?” Haruka asked Makoto during a lull in Makoto’s anxious monologue.

“Haru-chan,” Makoto had said gently. “You hate motorcycles.”

Haruka sits with his bag on his knees, arms wrapped tightly around its girth. He rests his chin atop the bag.

From Tokyo, Fujisan is a little over two hours away. If there are no delays, the bus will arrive at the Yoshidaguchi 5th station at six o' clock in the evening, just as the sun sets. It will be a cold, hard climb to the summit, but then, climbing during the day would not make much of a difference; it's that time of year.

“Hey,” someone says, “is there anyone sitting here?”

Haruka looks up into a pair of brilliant red eyes and an equally brilliant smile. For a moment, his mind goes blank.

“N-no,” he says, finally. “No-one is.”

“Thanks,” comes the reply, and the speaker sits down, although, strictly, ‘no-one is sitting here,’ isn’t an invitation, merely the insinuation of one. The stranger glances over at Haruka’s bag, still on his knees, and the half-open sketchbook in his hands. “Oh,” he exclaims, voice too loud in the confined space, “you’re an artist?”

Where have I seen him before? Haruka thinks, and replies, “not really.”

 

***

 

The first time you meet him, fittingly, is at the beach. Like a scene from some silly romcom, it is a little after sunrise one windy day in late April.

In keeping with the romcom theme, it is a perfect day for surfing: a steady tailwind in the direction of the coast, calm rhythmic waves.

“Come back before your legs fall off,” your sister says when she finds you leaving the beach-house, dressed in a wetsuit and carrying your board beneath your arm. “And don’t track sand in, or Sei’ll kick you out,” she adds.

(The beach-house belongs to your sister’s fiancé – Mikoshiba Seijuurou, former captain of the Japanese national men’s swimming team.)

“Yes, mom,” you say, and pull a face at her when she sticks her tongue out at you.

You leave your slippers on the porch, preferring to walk down the beach barefoot, your toes sinking into the sand. The air is brisk, cool; along the horizon, you can see the first rays of the sun beginning to unfold across the sky.

You are a little shaky, balanced on your board, careening down the waves; your injury from earlier in the year – the one that exiled you in the first place – has not yet completely healed, though at this point, it is more psychological than anything else.

You see him on the fifth or sixth pass back – a dark little figure seated against a boulder, head bent over something in his lap. A book, maybe, or a sketchpad, and the latter becomes more likely when you see him look up, in your direction, for several moments, and bend back down:

And then the wave breaks underneath your feet; you barely catch yourself, tilting into the water, the board dangling uselessly from your ankle. Bubbles erupt from your mouth and nose as you propel yourself upward. You imagine the headline: JAPANESE WORLD ‘FLY CHAMP MATSUOKA RIN DROWNS WHILE SURFING IN BACKYARD, in all caps, to emphasize the irony.

When you surface, you see the boy is on his feet.

“Hey,” he calls, the word carried to you on the wind, unsteady, as if he is unused to raising his voice, “are you okay?” He is already pulling off his t-shirt and shucking his shorts down his legs as he runs into the surf – he’s wearing a swimsuit underneath, you think, dazedly –

And before you can shout back – “I’m fine!” – he is already swimming towards you. Front crawl, you note, blinking through a film of seawater, and his technique is beautiful, and almost achingly familiar.

He reaches you within moments – but you have already recovered. Up close, you recognize him immediately.

(How could you not? You grew up watching him swim. He was an inspiration to you in so many ways – a disappointment in so many others.)

“Thank you,” you say, smiling your brightest smile as your heart swells in your throat (excitement? anticipation?), “but I’m okay now.”

He regards you with cool blue eyes, treading water.

“You’ve got an injury, haven’t you? You favor your left leg when you’re standing on the board.”

There is no censure in his tone – no emotion at all, in fact. He is just stating a fact.

You grin. “Ah,” you say, retrieving your board, “so you _were_ watching me.”

If you were expecting embarrassment, you are disappointed. His expression barely flickers.

“I’ll have you know,” you continue, raising an eyebrow, “it was your fault I fell. You were staring so hard it was distracting.”

Success: his face tinges with red. He does not apologize, however. He has not changed much, from when you knew him: he is still quiet, and proud, and probably stubborn as hell.

“You’re a great swimmer,” you say as you step onto dry land. “Ever swum competitively?”

He stands next to you on the beach, barely out of breath, hair dripping into his face, features half-masked in the early morning light. You hear the call of a seagull. A breeze ruffles your hair, cools the water drying against your skin and his.

This is your first lie by omission: you insinuate you do not know him.

His eyes, you think, are impossibly blue. Bluer than the sky growing lighter overhead. Bluer than the ocean the two of you have just climbed out of. Maybe, if you were a poet, you’d find the right words to describe them –

 His gaze finds yours, and holds.

“No,” he says, toneless. “I don’t care about times.”

 

***

 

“My name’s Matsuoka Rin,” the stranger said to Haruka after he’d sat down. “It’s a girly name, I know. Once, I thought I might change it, but I was too young then, and now it’s stuck.” He peered into Haruka’s face. “What’s yours?”

“Nanase Haruka,” Haruka replied after a moment’s pause. Rin seized the opportunity gleefully.

“Wow,” he’d said. “This must be fate,” and spent the next ten minutes talking about the different ways people could be brought together. “Nothing is coincidence,” he’d finished, emphatically, and flashed Haruka another one of his sharp-toothed grins. “Don’t you think, Haru? Can I call you that? – you can call me Rin, you know; I won’t mind – ”

He’d continued on, like a runaway train, before Haruka had time to object.

“You’re a terrible conversationalist,” he says now, giving Haruka a look of mock despair. Haruka knows that he doesn’t mean it because his eyes are smiling, pushed up into half-moons. He is easy to read, this Matsuoka Rin.

“Thanks,” Haruka says, wryly, and goes back to thinking of what to draw.

“That wasn’t a compliment,” Rin says, restless fingers smoothing down the panels of his jacket, but there is a smile in his voice, too.

“Mm,” Haruka says, barely sparing him a glance. He is quite practiced in ignoring people. It is one of his strengths, to Makoto’s eternal mortification.

“Really terrible conversationalist,” Rin repeats. “Do you really have nothing to say about anything?”

Haruka sighs. “Talking,” he says deliberately, “is a waste of time.”

Rin raises a fine, red eyebrow. Haruka is beset with the niggling feeling that he knows this expression far too well.

“Oh? Is there anything you don’t consider a waste of time?”

Haruka gives Rin a blank look. Rin’s lips twitch. Haruka thinks he might be one of those (annoying) people who bounce between moods with a sort of dizzying speed.

“Hey,” he says, “you seem to be at a loss for a subject; so hey – draw me?” His teeth sink into his bottom lip in time with the last word. Haruka wonders if the gesture - inherently alluring - was an accident.

“You don’t even know if I _can_ draw,” he is prompted to say.

Rin shrugs. “I’ve got a hunch. My hunches tend to be right, most of the time.” He tips his head to one side. “Or are you afraid to try?”

There it is again. Everything that comes out of his mouth sounds like a challenge. Haruka hates challenges. Competition is damaging and ludicrous. Winning is overrated.

He has forgotten a lot of things, lately, but Haruka is pretty sure he has never liked competing. So – he asks himself, why do you want to accept?

While Haruka contemplates this apparent meltdown of his mental faculties, Rin sits back in his chair, (seemingly) perpetual amusement dancing in his half-narrowed eyes. His face is a study in light and shadow, curves and planes brought out by the waning afternoon sunshine. Despite himself, Haruka finds he _wants_ to draw him.

“Flippant and full of yourself,” Haruka mutters, turning in his seat to face Rin better. “You’re my favorite kind of person.”

Rin ducks his head, not breaking eye contact. “Why, thank you.”

Haruka looks at him over his sketchpad. “That,” he says, echoing Rin’s earlier words, “wasn’t a compliment.”

Rin’s eyes grow briefly wide: and then he laughs – genuine, deep-throated laughter that, for some reason, makes Haruka’s heart race a little, and leaves a happy glow in its wake. There must be something wrong with him.

“How would you like me to sit?” Rin asks, the words wrapped in the lingering ghost of his laughter.

Haruka takes a deep breath.

“You’re fine,” he says, “just the way you are now.”

 

***

 

You learn that he is an artist.

“Concept art,” he tells you, and, when pressed, talks a little bit about the projects he’s done: character designs, and costumes.

You take him driving in Sei-chan’s car, which is actually a much-loved pick-up truck he refuses to get rid of. You drive to Uradome – take the truck as close to the water as you can. Sit in the back, feet dangling over the edge, jeans rolled up to your knees, toes skimming the water’s surface. Here, where sea meets sand so seamlessly it is easy to miss where one ends and the other begins, you can imagine, if only briefly, that you are the only two people in the world, caught up in the expanse of The Everything around you.

You can feel the weight of him against you, even across the several centimeters of space between you and him.

There are only a few moments to sunset. The sky is ablaze with red, heralding the death of the sun.

“As a kid, I used to come here a lot,” you say, like a whisper, “it was always my favorite place to come to when I wanted to clear my head.”

You want to add, _I wanted to share it with you_ , or something to that effect, but you are afraid of scaring him away; what you have is still too new and fragile to be tested.

He heaves a little sigh, his breath escaping from his lips like a bird unfurling its wings.

“This place – it’s like Shimazaki Toson said,” he begins, and you are so surprised to hear him speak you almost forget to breathe, “Matsushima is Matsushima, Uradome is Uradome.”

It goes unsaid that neither of you have ever seen Matsushima, but the sentiment is a universal one.

“So you read,” you say, using the conversation, as always, to glean whatever you can about him.

“Everyone reads, Rin,” he says, the syllable of you name so soft you wonder if you heard or imagined it. Your heart skips a beat.

He is outlined in molten gold, as if he was cast in it, luminous from the hair sweeping across his forehead to the sweat beading across his upper lip. In the moment, you wish you were an artist, too.

What would he do, you think, if you were to lean over and slide your tongue across the cleft between his nose and mouth? Would he push you away? –or, perhaps, if you are lucky, he’d tip his head back and lift his hands – delicate fingers, nails clipped just so – to cup your jaw, feather-soft against your skin, except where the callouses catch –

You clear your throat.

“You had swept back your bangs back for the first time/when I saw you under the apple tree – ”

In the half-light, you almost miss his answering smile, unfurling like a blossom.

“The flower comb in your hair/I thought you yourself were a flower too.”

His voice catches on the last syllable, tongue wrapping around the word. You can feel the slow, languorous glide of his gaze sliding up your face, leaving burning in its wake, till his eyes find yours and hold, hold, _hold_. How, you catch yourself thinking, did the rest of the poem go?

“You know,” you say, because you _must_ say something, “I don’t really like apples.”

His eyebrows furrow. “You don’t – ”

You laugh, a little nervous sound. “No – I’m um. More of a cherry blossom person.”

“Cherry blossom,” he repeats, flatly.

You slide down from the back of the truck, knees shaky as you find purchase in the damp sand.

“C’mon,” you say, “I’ll race you to the cave, there,” and you pull your t-shirt over your head, turning your head away so you cannot see him remove his.

“I hate races,” he grumbles, but allows himself, contrarily, to be pulled into the water.

“Loser has to drive home,” you say: a lower stake than usual, but how can you come up with something better when your head is still swimming and your lips ache with phantom pressure?

He sighs, throws his shirt into the back of the truck. “You could just _ask_ me to drive,” he says, but like so many other things he says and does not say, this is something he does not mean.

And the moment is truly broken.

 

***

 

The bus arrives at the Yoshidaguchi 5th Station on schedule. The overhead digital clock reads 6:01 PM as the bus pulls into the parking area. Through the windshield, Haruka can see Fujisan’s base extending into the sky, fiery with the beginnings of sunset.

Besides Haruka and Rin, there are three other passengers on board: a salary-man in his late forties, and a pair of newly-weds. Haruka waits for them to leave before standing up and lifting his backpack off the floor. He takes his time putting away his sketchpad – now with a drawing of Rin gracing its pages – and zipping the bag up.

The bus driver watches him in the rearview mirror, an impatient furrow between his eyebrows.

“I haven’t got all day,” the driver finally says, just as Haruka is swinging his backpack onto his shoulders.

“Sorry,” Haruka tells him on his way out.

Rin is waiting at the bottom of the steps. “Took you long enough,” he teases, his own bag hanging off one shoulder. “What were you doing in there?”

Waiting for you to go on ahead, Haruka almost says, but then settles for saying nothing at all.

“I’m going to get something to eat,” Rin says, gesturing at the tourist huts at the end of the parking lot. “Want to come?”

Haruka debates saying no, just to be contrary: but it would be a lie, because he does want to come, just like he’d hoped Rin would wait for him at the bus’s door. He doesn’t know why; he and Rin have only just met – but he dislikes lying, generally.

Rin is looking at him with a strange expression on his face: part frustrated and impatient, but with quite a bit of fondness, as if Haruka is someone he’s known and cared about for years and years, instead of a random stranger he just happened to meet on a bus –

But then, Haruka thinks, even the best of friends must have been strangers, once.

“Sure,” Haruka says, quietly.

Rin slings an arm around his shoulder. Despite his almost universal distaste for being touched, Haruka finds he doesn’t mind – not even when Rin says, almost into his ear, “that’s great! I was afraid you’d say no. My treat – you did that drawing of me; I’ve gotta pay you back, somehow. Oh – we’re going to need walking sticks, too, and I hope you’ve got a jacket in that bag because you’re going to need it – ”

 

***

 

“I’m not,” he tells you, arms crossed over his chest, “getting on till you put on your helmet.”

He’s got that look on his face that means he is going to be particularly stubborn: mouth in a thin, flat line, eyes impossibly stormy. He’s worn the expression more and more frequently, lately. You have been infuriated with him, more often, lately, too.

You wish you could read his mind, or have him read yours – make him understand how you feel about him – everything you want for him and _from_ him –

But this isn’t a fantasy story, and neither of you can read minds, and besides, if he knew everything you thought –

“God, Haru,” you say, mirroring his pose, “you’re so annoying, sometimes, you know that?” You say it mostly to hurt him, heaving a deep breath, and set the helmet on your head. You pull the straps tight with white knuckles.

“That’s funny,” he bites out. You can hear the barely suppressed fury in his tone, somewhere behind the carefully modulated words. “I recall saying the same thing about you. On more than one occasion.”

His voice shakes on the last word. You squeeze your eyes shut. “Are you,” you say, thumbing the bridge of your nose, “going to make an issue out of this?”

“I don’t want to,” he says, after a moment’s pause, and the impartial observer in you rejoices at the candidness of the admission. “I’d really prefer not to.”

You can feel your face and neck heat up – and, just like that, the fight drains out of you. You rub at your forehead, hoping your blush isn’t as obvious as it feels. “Okay,” you say, and hold the other helmet out in his direction, “then – will you try and maybe work with me here?”

He takes it, lips turned up at the corners, and slips it over his head. “You’re the expert,” he says, fastening the buckles.

God, you think, is he _flirting_ with me? You busy yourself rolling the motorcycle forward so that you can reach over the bars comfortably.

“Look,” you say, indicating the lever in front of the right handlebar, “this is the front brake.” You take a breath – it’s hard to talk, all of a sudden. “There’s a back brake, too, but you’re going to use this more often.”

He nods. You catch the movement out of the periphery of your vision, because you are not looking directly at him. “Okay,” he says.

“This is the throttle,” you press down on it, “and – you use the clutch, here, to engage the first gear. –you do that first, obviously. The throttle comes into play afterword.”

You swallow. God, you think, I’m such an idiot. You shake the thought out of your head.

“Come on,” you say, and pat the seat, as if he needs the visual cue, “sit down.”

He straddles the bike, sitting gingerly on the seat. His foot dangles above the ground on one side.

“Put the key in,” you say, your shoulder brushing his back as you lean over him to point it out, “start up the engine.”

His fingers fumble with the key ring. You’re not sure if he’s nervous because of you or the bike – briefly, you entertain the thought that it is because of you, and find it does nothing to make you feel better. The engine roars to life. The bike vibrates against your knee; you step back to give him space.

“Now pull in the clutch and change gears. Don’t bring in the throttle yet.”

You cross your arms, mostly because you don’t know what to do with your hands. He squeezes the clutch.

“It should click into place,” you inform him, and mentally hit yourself for not mentioning it earlier. The engine rumbles as he changes gears.

“It clicked,” he says, voice strangely high. You would find it endearing, if you weren’t empathizing with his situation

“Okay,” you say, sounding almost as nervous as he does, “alright – let out the clutch. Slowly. The bike’s going to jump forward – so you’re going to have to keep it upright. Ready?”

You hold your breath. He lets out the clutch. The engine roars – wheels skidding against the road – and the bike falls over. It crashes to the ground, wheels spinning. Haruka yelps, the most undignified sound you have heard him make yet.

You are caught between laughter and concern, moving to kneel beside him and holding out a hand to help him up. There is a new bruise decorating his left knee, and a scratch mark on his cheek. The look he gives you is like a wounded puppy’s; all reproachful.

“You’re laughing at me,” he says helping you stand the bike upright.

“M’not,” you say, “at least, I don’t mean to.”

You stand surveying the bike for several moments. It is mostly unharmed.

“I’m not sure I should get back on,” he says, “if I break something I’ll have to take time off from swimming.”

You flick his forehead, catching the movement too late. Luckily for you, he no longer seems to mind physical affection as much as he did; he barely changes expression. “Like you really swim,” you tease, “please; all you do is lie in your bathtub all day.”

“That isn’t _all_ I do,” he mutters, “I swim – ”

“Free, yeah, I get it,” you say. “But motorbikes are wicked cool, you know? It’s definitely worth learning to ride one, if you’ve got the chance.”

He narrows his eyes at you. “Is everything you do motivated by how cool it’s going to make you look?”

There, you think, lightheaded, he’s flirting again, the little shit. I didn’t think he was capable of it. You force a laugh. It comes out ragged, around the edges. “Cool, yes, and romantic. Those are pretty much the only criteria.”

“And the helmet takes away from your points, doesn’t it?” he says. “You’re such an idiot.” He pauses, almost comically, after he’s said the words, as if he can’t quite believe he’s said them. His teeth sink into his bottom lip.

You stare at each other across the motorcycle.

“Well,” you say, finally, a smirk playing around the edges of your voice, “I’m not complaining. Compared to before, you’ve definitely opened up, so I guess I must be doing something right. You talk now, even if it is mostly grumbling. Dare I say you’re opening up to me?”

“No,” he says, lightly, “it’s because you’re annoying.” He breathes in – you hear the breath catch.

Unconsciously, your expression softens into a smile. “Good. As long as I’m not inspiring apathy.” You comb the hair out of your face, businesslike.  “Right,” you say, “I’mma teach you to ride if it kills me. C’mon, let’s do this.”

 

***

 

The first two and a half kilometers of the climb runs through a sea of evergreens. The air is thick with the smell of them. The trees grow packed closely together, roots spread wide across the thin, black soil.

Contrary to Haruka’s expectations, Rin is silent. He hasn’t said a word since the beginning of the hike. Instead, he walks quietly, a constant presence at Haruka’s shoulder, sometimes ahead, sometimes behind, and always within arm’s reach.

It is so quiet Haruka can hear the evening twitter of the birds, the rustle of the wind in the trees, the sound of his breathing, and the persistent hum of his thoughts inside his head. You know him from somewhere, his mind chatters at him. But where from? The idea niggles at the back of his brain, flitting just out of reach, like a title of a song when the refrain plays, over and over, in his ears.

“You know this path is snowed closed during October?” Rin says just as Haruka blurts out, “have I met you somewhere, before?”

Rin laughs. “Bit of a delayed reaction, isn’t that, huh, Haru?”

He exaggerates the syllables of Haruka’s name – Ha-ru, slurring the ‘r’, curling the tip of his tongue against the roof of his mouth. It is simultaneously infuriating and attractive, like so many things about him: the way the sunlight glints of the sharp of his teeth, the way he smiles with only half his mouth –

Shut up, Haruka thinks to himself, you’ve just met him. You don’t even know if –

“But yeah, I know what you mean,” Rin says musingly. “I can’t shake the feeling I’ve met you somewhere, too, but I can’t recall it. Maybe I’ve seen you in a bookstore, or on the street, and the image of you just stuck, you know? I mean, you’re hella good looking – ” He turns red, and stops, abruptly. He gives Haruka a furtive look out of the corner of his eye. “Sorry,” he says, “I’ve got no filter, my sister says – her name’s Gou, she – ”

“It’s fine,” Haruka says, and decides to take the plunge. “I – was thinking the same thing about you.”

A look of unreserved hopefulness blossoms on Rin’s face. It shutters almost immediately, features settling into an expressionless blank. “Wait,” he says, carefully, voice stretched thin, “you’re making fun of me, aren’t you?”

“No,” Haruka says, horrified, “no, that’s not what – you really are and I –  ” He takes a deep breath. Rin has stopped walking; they stand in the middle of the trail, nearly at the 2.5 kilometer mark, where the shrubbery gives way to rock. “Look, I’m not – very good with words. I don’t know how to say convincing things or sound like what I mean matters,” he wets his lips, “but I – I really hate lying. And I mean it when I say I’m not making fun of you.”

Rin’s Adam’s apple bobs in his throat.

 In the ensuing silence, Haruka realizes he has put his hand out, fingers millimeters from grazing Rin’s jacket. He begins to pull his hand back, cheeks aflame, but Rin traps Haruka’s wrist in the circle of his index finger and thumb.

“I believe you,” Rin says, very seriously, and then he grins. “Sorry for the over-reaction; I’ve been laughed at for this before; it’s not a pleasant feeling.”

“It wasn’t an over-reaction,” Haruka says, quietly.

Rin tugs at his hand, resuming the climb upward. His hand is like a brand around Haruka’s arm; searing hot.

“You can let go of my hand now,” Haruka says.

Rin looks back at him. His smile turns knowing.  “If it makes you uncomfortable, tell me and I will,” he says, “but if it doesn’t – hey. I like you – I gather that you, at the very least, physically like me,” he accompanies this statement with a roguish wink, “so I believe this is a win-win situation for the both of us.”

Haruka lifts his free hand to his burning face. “You’re so embarrassing,” he mutters, and wonders when he began talking so much.

Rin laughs.

They arrive at the eighth station along the trail at two in the morning, having climbed slower than they otherwise might have, Haruka thinks, were they not in each other’s company. As it were: they have stopped to eat, once, and numerous other times to take photographs (or ‘selfies’, as Rin calls them), on Rin’s insistence (“How else will we prove we were here?”). Haruka hates posing for photographs, but he can’t help but smile, around Rin.

From the eighth station, the summit is another two hour hike. It grew progressively harder to breathe the higher they climbed; now, Haruka feels as though his lungs don’t expand properly no matter how deep a breath he takes.

“Calm down,” Rin tells him, wrapping his warm hands around Haruka’s cold-as-ice ones. He must have some sort of internal heater, like those stupid werewolves in that one film series Ran’s been watching lately. “You’ll just make it harder to breathe getting all worked up.”

He rubs Haruka’s hands in between his own, the friction warming Haruka’s skin. His eyes are dark in the moonlight, a slight smile curving his mouth, his nose and cheeks pink from the cold.

“It’s less than three-and-a-half hours to sunrise,” Rin says. He is standing so close his breath skims Haruka’s skin. “We’d better get a move on if we want to make it in time.”

Haruka narrows his eyes, tipping his head back to look Rin in the face. “Whose fault is it we’re short on time?”

Rin laughs softly, the sound reverberating in Haruka’s ears. He cups Haruka’s chin in his fingers, touching a kiss, feather-soft, to Haruka’s nose. His lips are impossibly warm. It takes a moment for Haruka to remember how to breathe.

“What,” he begins, blood pounding in his ears. 

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Rin says, grinning. His teeth glint. “Here, let me kiss you properly.”

“Rin,” Haruka says, before his brain short-circuits, heat spreading across his face and down his spine from the point of contact. His toes curl in his shoes. He is hyper aware of Rin’s hands coming to rest at the curve of his waist, the scrape of teeth against his lip, the brush of hair over his cheek.

“There,” Rin says against Haruka’s mouth, “was that better?”

Haruka stares mutely at him, wide-eyed. 

“Oh, stop,” Rin says, tucking his chin into his jacket collar and turning away, “if you keep looking at me like that we’ll never make it to the top. Come on: I bet we can get something hot to drink here.”

The smile in his voice lingers in the air.

When Haruka sets foot on the summit of Mount Fuji it is 4:40 AM local time on the 7th of September, and it is less than an hour to sunrise. The sky is still dark, almost pitch black, blanketed with millions of tiny bright pinpricks. Haruka buries his hands in his pockets, staring up into the sky.

“Hey, look,” Rin says, pointing upward, “there’s the constellation Lyra; you see that star? That’s Vega, the silk weaver.”

“Where’s the cowherd?” Haruka asks, squinting at the pinpricks.

“Mmm,” Rin says, pursing his lips. He turns in place, till he is facing southward. “-oh, there it is. Altair, right there, Haru, look.”

Haruka follows the line of his finger.  

“The constellations’s called Aquila. You know what’s interesting?”

Haruka shakes his head. “No.”

“Well, both Aquila and Altair mean bird – Aquila is eagle, more specifically, in Latin, and Altair is Arabic. Isn’t that cool?”

“I guess,” Haruka says.

“Ah, show a little more enthusiasm,” Rin says, squeezing Haruka’s shoulder. He sets his cheek against the top of Haruka’s head. “Funny how, in legend, he’s a cowherd, but the star’s called The Eagle. He really upgraded in the afterlife, huh.”

“It isn’t meant to be a happy ending, Rin,” Haruka says. He is very, very warm, all of a sudden.

“Well, no, but, if you think about it, they do come together, again and again, every year. In reality, so many people, once torn apart, by their own actions or circumstance, never meet again. But the weaver girl and the cowherd? No matter how far apart they may be, they will always return to each other.”

“Are you,” Haruka says slowly, “the sort of guy who likes shoujo animanga?”

“Way to ruin the moment, Haru-chan,” Rin’s chuckle travels from the top of Haruka’s head down to his feet, “but yes, you’re right. I am a closet romantic.”

“There’s nothing about you that’s in the closet, Rinrin,” Haruka mutters, and attempts to extricate himself from Rin’s grip. He gives up when the effort proves futile. Rin, Haruka realizes, is stubborn, too in his own way.

Half an hour to sunrise, and the edges of the sky are beginning to lighten, color bleeding into black like watercolor. Haruka can make out the shapes of the clouds wrapped around the mountain, hazy irregular shapes melding into each other. The air is damp. I’m standing in a cloud, Haruka realizes, and _we’re_ standing in clouds.

Slowly, the sun appears over the line of the horizon, first a sliver, than an upside-down-grin. It inches upward, rays spreading out like arms reaching to embrace the sky, bringing warmth and radiance and color. Slowly, the sky stops  resisting, surrendering to the sun’s brilliance, succumbing to its vitality.

 It is, Haruka thinks, all the more beautiful for it.

 

***

 

He backs you against the wall of your bedroom, hands fisted in the collar of your shirt. He raises his eyes to meet yours, straight, unflinching. Your back pushes up into the wall – cornered.

You remember your earlier taunt: _you’d never make a move, would you? You’d never reach out and take what you want you’d just stand and let the opportunity slip by you’d regret it afterwards you would you would –_

The blood pounds in your head. Come on, you think, come on, come on –

He rises onto his toes and presses his dry, chapped lips to yours. His eyes are squeezed shut, a little crease of determination between his eyebrows, as if you are a race to be won, a challenge to overcome: and maybe you are, you think, your heart expanding to fill your chest. Maybe you are.

You slide your hands up his side, close your arms around his back. Pull him as close as you humanly can while still remaining separate entities, the flats and curves of him fitted against the topography of your body. He makes a little sound against your mouth: an exhale of breath, fingers gravitating from your collar to the angle of your jaw, fingertips ghosting across your face, down your throat.

“Rin,” he murmurs, “Rin – Rin – Rin – ”

There is a whirlpool that has opened underneath you, tugging hard and fast. Somewhere, in the middle of it, there is calm, like the eye of a storm -

"Rin," he says, your name heavy in his mouth.

“Ssh,” you tell him, hook your foot around his leg, cup the back of his head, because what does it matter if you drown, if he is there to drown with you? “Ssh,” you whisper into the hollow of his throat, the space behind his jaw. "Ssh."

The world fades to black.

 

***

 

“The cost is per bed,” the receptionist says, sliding the hut’s brochure across the desk. “The off-season price is 7500, breakfast included. During the peak season our prices reach ten thousand yen.”

Rin pulls his wallet out of his back pocket, thumbing the bills inside. “Whoops,” he says brightly, “I am three thousand yen short. You wouldn’t happen to have any money on you, would you, Haru?”

Haruka pulls out the crumpled notes in his pocket. Sorted out, they come to three thousand yen exactly. Not a yen more, not a yen less.

“I think someone somewhere is conspiring against us,” Haruka says dryly.

“Or doing us a favor,” Rin says, pulling another exaggerated wink-and-flashy-grin.

Haruka sighs. “I’m stuck with you, aren’t I?”

Rin snags the room key off the desk, slipping it into his pocket. “Hey, at least we get breakfast. I don’t know about you, but I am starving.”

They sit across from each other at the table in the hut’s dining room. The salary-man from the bus is at one of the other tables; Haruka sees him paging through a newspaper as he eats his rice. Sunlight streams through the floor-to-ceiling windows; beyond the glass lies the little pathway leading up to the hut’s door, and the descending part of the Yoshida trail.

“I asked at the desk,” Rin says, chewing his rice, “and the first bus is at ten. They run at one-hour-intervals, apparently, and the last bus is at eight. I think it might be a good idea to get a couple hours sleep and then make the descent, what do you say?”

Haruka shrugs. “It’s fine by me,” he says.

“Great,” Rin stretches his arms over his head. “How’s one for a target wake-up time? We can make it down to 5th Station in three or four hours, catch the six o clock bus.” He pushes his empty bowl into the center of the table and stands, arching his back and cracking his neck, first to one side and then the other. The hem of his shirt rides up.

Haruka looks down at the table. “It’s not healthy to do that,” he says.

Rin peers into his face. “You’re turning red, there, Haru-chan. Guess you like what you see, huh?”

Haruka turns away, willing his flush to fade. It does not, of course. That would be too convenient.

Rin ruffles Haruka’s hair. “Oh, I’m just kidding. You’re _so cute_ , you know?” He loops an arm around Haruka’s neck.

The room consists of a tiny twin-sized bed set flush against the wall, an equally tiny dressing table, and a bathroom with a standing shower but no tub. Haruka can barely conceal his disappointment.

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Rin tells him, looking into the bathroom over Haruka’s shoulder. “A day without a bath won’t kill you.” He throws a glance at the bed. “I’m more concerned about how we’re going to fit on that thing. There isn’t even a couch in here, or I’d be a gentleman and offer you the bed and all –”

“Your sister, Gou-san,” Haruka interrupts, “do you watch shoujo with her?”

Rin sighs at him. “I’m a man of varied tastes and interests,” he says loftily, “don’t hold it against me.”

“You didn’t say no,” Haruka observes.

“You have a singular mind, Haru-chan,” Rin tells him.

“I don’t like you, Rinrin,” Haruka says, meeting his gaze.

Rin smiles, catlike. “That’s a shame,” he says, “because I _really, really_ like _you_.”

Haruka ends up wedged between the windowsill and Rin, curled up on his side. Rin lies facing him, cheek resting on the back of one hand, heavy-lidded with tiredness, the length of his forearm, covered in fine, red hair, touching Haruka’s. Haruka lifts a hand, running his fingertips through the strands.

“Usually don’t have ‘em,” Rin says, slurring the words. He shifts, so he can see Haruka better.

“You don’t?” Haruka prompts.

“Mm; I shave,” Rin says. “For swimming. Reduces drag.” He gives Haruka a slow, sleepy smile. He has a dimple in one cheek, and the faint impression of one in the other. Haruka skips a beat. “Tell you ‘bout it in the morning.”

“Okay.”

Haruka wakes up to an arm draped over his waist. His cellphone informs him it is eleven thirty. Rin is still asleep, head buried in the pillow, hair awry. He drools, Haruka notes with fond amusement, several strands of hair plastered to his cheek.

Haruka sits up in bed, carefully removing Rin’s arm. He draws his knees to his chest, slowly, so he doesn’t wake Rin. It’s such a strange sequence of events, he thinks, that have led him to this point: sharing a bed with someone who was a complete stranger less than twenty-four hours ago. That he feels as though he’s known Rin his whole life is beside the point.

Reaching into his bag, Haruka pulls out the copy of _The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle_. He’d put it into his bag as an afterthought, the list still nestled within the pages. Haruka regards the bit of paper for a moment, tracing the familiar kanji. Then he reaches back into his bag, retrieving his pencil. With the list spread out on top of the book and the book balanced on his knees, Haruka makes a checkmark next to #24: climb Mount Fuji. That leaves #25: blank, but he can’t do that until he finds out what it’s supposed to mean.

Folding the list in half, he tucks it back into the book. The dedication written on the inside cover stares up at him. _To Haru, with love_. Another puzzle he has yet to solve. Haruka sighs, flipping through the book’s Forward and Introduction till he comes to the first chapter. He settles his back against the wall.

At a quarter past twelve, Haruka puts the book down on the windowsill. He climbs out of the bed, making sure not to accidentally hit Rin. In the bathroom, Haruka stands under the shower-head, fiddling with the water temperature till it’s hot enough to be slightly uncomfortable. His skin reddens under the onslaught. Haruka lathers up the (generic, hotel-provided) shampoo, working it into his hair with his fingertips, and  brushes his teeth while still in the shower. Afterwards, squeaky clean, he towels off, pulling on a fresh pair of jeans and a blue long-sleeved shirt (identical to the one he’d worn the day before).

He steps out of the bathroom, exchanging the bathroom slippers for the bedroom ones.

Rin is sitting up, awake, the bed sheets tangled around his legs. He is bent over a book – dimly, Haruka remembers leaving _The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle_ on the windowsill.

“Are you reading that?” Haruka asks, by way of greeting. “It’s interestingly written; I haven’t read anything by this author before but his writing really draws you in. It’s a present; I found it in my apartment; I don’t know who gave it to me –”

Rin looks up, eyes meeting Haruka’s, his expression blank. He has the list in one hand, the book in the other, cover opened to the dedication. _To Haru, with love_. “Ah,” he says, bemused. “I did.”

 

***

 

“Haru,” you breathe, and turn onto your side to better look at him, damp grainy sand sticking to your exposed skin. About that #25 –

He looks over at you, eyebrows lifted slightly, as if to ask, _yes, Rin, what is it_?

“Haru – come to Australia with me.” Your words hang in the air, briefly, like mist in cold weather, before being snatched away by the wind. His eyebrows draw together.

“What?” he says, sharp, the tone of his voice at odds with the wind and the waves and the atmosphere you’ve created.

You sit up, and then stand, holding out a hand in his direction. He regards you for a moment before reaching up to accept it, his fingers closing around your wrist. You haul him to his feet, gripping both his arms to steady him, your forehead leaning forward to press, firmly against his. He looks at you from underneath his lashes, still frowning. You press your thumb against his mouth, tilt your head to kiss him, holding his head in place with your hands.

He doesn’t kiss back.

“Rin,” he mutters, “what – ”

“It’s nothing,” you say. “Come on, let’s get back to the car.”

He allows you to lead him to the car, but he is stonily silent the whole time, gaze fixed stubbornly on the ground, eyebrows furrowed. You kick yourself, mentally, for saying the words – but you’ve been waiting to for so long, and if not now, _when_ –

You unlock the car, slide into the driver’s seat, and wait for him to get in. He opens the door infuriatingly slowly, climbs in even slower, as if intent on irritating you – recompense, perhaps, for irritating him?

His door slams shut, and you reverse the pickup till you have enough ground to make a turn, the wheels sinking into the sand.

“Anything you want to listen to?” you ask, in an attempt to dispel the atmosphere within the cabin.

There is no reply.

You count to ten. Then twenty. He ignores you. You pull onto the road. You can feel a headache coming on, pounding at your temples and the space behind your eyes. Odaiba is a forty-five minute drive away from Kichijoji Station; you have forty-five minutes to spend in his company –

“Haru,” you say, “I’m sorry – ”

He seizes the opportunity. “For what?”

You drum your fingers against the steering wheel. “Listen,” you say, carefully. “You’ve got this incredible potential – I mean, you haven’t swum seriously, in what, six years? But in the past six months I’ve seen you grow _so much_ it would be an absolute waste of your ability to stay here and draw – ”

“I’ve told you,” he says, flatly, “I hate swimming competitively – ”

“You’re lying,” you cut him off, “you said you hate lying, remember? Well, you’re lying. You love competitive swimming, I know you do. You get all fired up when we race, don’t you? Tell me that isn’t because you love it, Haru, say it – ”

His lips thin into a single, white line. “It isn’t because I love it.”

“Don’t screw around, Haru,” you spit, “you’re just being contrary – you swum competitively for ten _fucking_ years you won _fucking_ championships I remember you winning medal after medal do you know how much of a _fucking_ inspiration you were to me – ”

“Don’t,” he says, voice shaking, “project your expectations onto me and expect me to line up to them.”

He stares straight ahead, at the windshield, eyes bright. Oh shit, you think your mouth going dry, I’ve made him cry – he lifts a hand, furiously wiping at his face, takes in a deep breath through his mouth.

“Haru,” you say, your voice cracking, “Haru, baby – ”

“You’re going to miss your exit,” he says. He runs the back of his hand over his face.

You take the exit before you miss it. You’ve entered downtown Tokyo, now. A driver cuts in front of you and you swear at him. It relieves a little of your tension.

“Haru,” you begin, “I didn’t mean to project, it’s just – since I’ve been in therapy, for my leg – it’s been really hard keeping my spirits up, you know? And – from the moment I met you, on that beach – I’ve been thinking about how incredible it would be if you came with me and swam professionally – you’d take the world by storm, Haru, you really would – ”

“From the moment we met?”

You shrink, a little, in your chair. You never imagined he could look so _angry_.

“You’ve been lying to me from the beginning, haven’t you?” There are twin blotches of color on his cheekbones, red against his bloodless face. “You didn’t care about me – you just wanted me to get back into competitive swimming!”

You pull the car to the side of the road, shift the stick to neutral. “Haru – ”

“Don’t, Rin, don’t,” he says. He’s unbuckling his seatbelt, angry tears brimming in the corners of his eyes. “You lied to me – ”

“Haru, I didn’t mean to – ”

“Well, then you should be more careful about what you do and say,” he says, scathing. The seatbelt springs free, slotting back into place with a loud thunk. “I thought you loved me, Rin. I thought you cared about me. I never imagined you would be so – so selfish.” He looks at you, eyes red, tear tracks staining his face.

“You know?” he says, biting his lip, “I loved you back. I – still love you, fuck it, I do, and it hurts, because I will never be what you want me to be, Rin.”

He pushes the car door open. You stare at him, mutely, your eyes burning. Funny how tears never come when you need them most. His name repeats like a mantra inside your head: Haru, Haru, Haru, Haru –

“I wish – I wish I’d never met you, Rin – I wish I could wake up never having known you – ” He takes another deep breath. “I wish you luck with your training in Australia – and with whatever you decide to do in the future.  Don’t call me. Don’t message me, or call Makoto, or any of my other friends. This is it, Rin. This is goodbye.”

The door slams shut.

You follow the lines of his figure as long as you can through the window glass.

You start up the engine.

 

***

 

Haruka stares at his hands, clasped in his lap. “I,” he says, “don’t know what happened, exactly. Rei – he’s my friend, he’s a paramedic – told me I’d been in an accident, about a week ago.”

Rin looks at him, expression wistful. “I must’ve said something to you, huh.”

“What happened to you?” As soon as he’s said it, Haruka wishes he could take it back and phrase it better.

“No clue,” Rin shrugs. “All I remember from last Saturday is going to Odaiba Island. I guess I was homesick for the sea; it’s really the only place in Tokyo the public can see the ocean.”

“Oh.”

Rin taps a fingernail against the dedication. “I assume,” he says, “you came to Odaiba with me. We spent the day there. And on the way back – ” He stops, abruptly. “I was going to tell you about my swimming,” he says, “remember?”

Haruka nods.

“Well – I’m aiming for the Olympics. Usually, I’m in Sydney, Australia – I train there. Almost a year ago, though, I sprained an ankle. I was told to rest, but, like an idiot, I ignored my doctor and kept training. Because of the injury, I ended up putting a lot of stress on my knee and leg; I ended up developing swimmer’s knee, which usually only – or mostly – affects breaststrokers. I swim butterfly, so technically I’d be more vulnerable to arm injuries, but fate works in interesting ways.”

He holds out his arms. “I’ve been in physiotherapy and shit lately; haven’t swum competitively in over eight months. That’s the explanation for this.” He tilts his head to one side. “So, what about you, Haru? You do any sports? You look like you do; you’ve got that athletic look about you.”

 “I swim,” Haruka says folding his arms around himself, “freestyle.”

Rin’s face breaks into a grin. “Do you,” he says. “I bet I’ve raced you. Betcha I won.”

Haruka smiles a little and looks away. “Even if you did, it wouldn’t matter. I don’t care about winning, or times.”

“That – sounds like I’ve heard it, before,” Rin says, eyebrows coming together. “I’m – sorry, for upsetting you.”

He holds a hand out, palm up. “Haru,” he says, “you may not believe me, but I really do like you. I know we probably fought, a lot, when we were together, and disagreed on a lot of things – but look, here we are again, despite our parting. There’s got to be a reason for that.”

Oh, Haruka thinks, and he remembers the look on Rin’s face, cast into half-shadow by the moonlight.

“I’m not going to push you into anything,” Rin continues. “But – if you’re not averse to the idea, do you think we could maybe try being friends?”

He smiles, open and friendly, pronouncing the dimple in his cheek. Despite his misgivings, Haruka’s heart flutters in his chest.  

“Sure,” he says, quietly, and takes Rin’s hand.

 

***

 

“Looks like our bucket list is coming along pretty well,” you comment, smoothing out the piece of paper with the list. “We’ve got, hmm, two things left to do – the gate at Itsukushima, and climbing Mount Fuji. What do you want to do first, Haru?”

He shrugs. “Whatever you’d like.”

You sigh. “Haru, this is supposed to be your list.”

“More than half the ideas are yours.”

“That’s because your original list lacked variety.”

He throws a mock-glare in your direction. “Go hang out with someone more fun, then. Let me read.”

Saying so, he goes back to his novel, a modern translation of the _Tale of Genji_. You admire his fortitude; it is a long, dry, boring work. Your appreciation for classics does not extend to mummies.

“Ah,” you say, suddenly, “speaking of books, that reminds me. I’ve got something for you.”

“Oh? What is it?” He looks up, expectantly.

You reach into your back and bring out the paperback copy of _The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle_ you’ve bought him. “Here,” you say, “this’ll be much easier to read than that giant tome you’ve got there.”

He reaches for it, running a hand over the cover, and lifts the book open. You watch his eyes skim the inside cover, stop, and widen. He runs a fingertip over the message you have left him. _To Haru, with love_.

“I mean it, you know,” you tell him.

You watch the swell of his throat rise and fall.

“I know, Rin,” he says. “I know.”

 

***

 

Nagisa’s voice reverberates through the phone. “Haru-chaaaan, you stood us up again! You said you’d come home this weekend! Mako-chan’s starting to think you don’t like us anymore.”

Haruka sighs, leaning against the pillar outside the train station. “I’m sorry,” he says, “but my friend’s flight was delayed. I’ll be over as soon as I can.”

“Don’t forget to bring him with you,” Nagisa commands, “after all the trouble you’ve been through to get him.”

Haruka smiles. “I won’t,” he promises. “Give Makoto and Rei my love. Later, Nagisa.”

“See you, Haru-chan!”

The line goes dead. Haruka stows his phone into his pocket. He thinks of the last email Rin sent him – from the night before. He’d linked a song – _Laughter Lines_ , by a British band called Bastille – with the lyrics translated into Japanese.

_You’re gonna have to laugh for me tomorrow_ , Rin had said in the subject line, and, _I’ve got so many stories to tell you_.

In Narita’s international arrivals terminal, Haruka joins the throng of people waiting for their loved ones. He maneuvers through the crowd till he is standing right by the railing, so that, hopefully, when Rin comes out, Haruka will be the first person he sees.

In the meantime:

Haruka stands with his heart in his throat.

The overhead radio crackles, the announcer’s voice echoing throughout the terminal.

The sound of the crowd around him fills Haruka’s ears, the voices of a hundred people distilled into white noise.

A security guard sets aside the red tape blocking off the exit. The passengers off the JAL flight from Sydney to Tokyo begin filing through the door.

The phone vibrates in Haruka’s pocket.

_I’m out_ , the message reads, _where are you?_

Haruka looks up. Rin appears through the gate. Across the hall, Haruka’s eyes meet Rin’s, and Rin holds his gaze. Rin’s face creases into a smile, laughter lines crinkling the corners of his eyes: _hey lover_ , he mouths across the sea of people between them, _miss me?_

And: before he knows it, Haruka is pressing the side of his fist to his mouth to stifle the sound of his laughter.

 

***

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 - end

 

 


End file.
